Water Billing Data Research Articles

Using Existing Municipal Water Data to Support Conservation Efforts

There is an urgent need to ensure the sustainability of urban water resources. It is commonly agreed that effective monitoring is a powerful tool to that end, but upgrades to data collection systems may not be feasible for many municipalities because of the significant resources required. The aim of this project was to explore how existing water meter data can be used to support conservation efforts, using the City of Vancouver parks system as a case study. This study used a framework developed in data science to identify how the data management process could be improved. The study showed that the lack of strategic processing and cleaning of the data for conservation purposes was a major barrier, limiting the capacity to analyze data and communicate pertinent information. Further, this study suggests that strategic analysis of readily available water billing data can be an effective way to support conservation efforts.

Analytical optimization of demand management strategies across all urban water use sectors

AbstractAn effective urban water demand management program can greatly influence both peak and average demand and therefore long‐term water supply and infrastructure planning. Although a theoretical framework for evaluating residential indoor demand management has been well established, little has been done to evaluate other water use sectors such as residential irrigation in a compatible manner for integrating these results into an overall solution. This paper presents a systematic procedure to evaluate the optimal blend of single family residential irrigation demand management strategies to achieve a specified goal based on performance functions derived from parcel level tax assessor's data linked to customer level monthly water billing data. This framework is then generalized to apply to any urban water sector, as exponential functions can be fit to all resulting cumulative water savings functions. Two alternative formulations are presented: maximize net benefits, or minimize total costs subject to satisfying a target water savings. Explicit analytical solutions are presented for both formulations based on appropriate exponential best fits of performance functions. A direct result of this solution is the dual variable which represents the marginal cost of water saved at a specified target water savings goal. A case study of 16,303 single family irrigators in Gainesville Regional Utilities utilizing high quality tax assessor and monthly billing data along with parcel level GIS data provide an illustrative example of these techniques. Spatial clustering of targeted homes can be easily performed in GIS to identify priority demand management areas.

Irrigation Conservation of Florida-Friendly Landscaping Based on Water Billing Data

AbstractSupplemental irrigation is often required to maintain residential landscapes in Florida, but existing and projected water shortages have led to an increased focus on reducing the amount of publically supplied potable water used for irrigation. Florida-Friendly Landscaping (FFL) has been promoted as a method to reduce irrigation, but the actual water savings has not been previously quantified. Analysis of monthly combined (indoor and outdoor) potable water billing records and parcel data for 125 FFL and 736 traditionally landscaped comparison homes in southwest Florida indicated that FFL homes used 50% less irrigation. Irrigation savings increased to 76% when considering only good examples of FFL and comparison landscapes with high-quality turfgrass. The FFL customers reduced their irrigation use (279 mm/year) after their landscapes became recognized (202 mm/year). Prior to recognition, these customers were already using less irrigation than their neighbors (279 versus 464 mm/year, respectively)...

Estimation of residential outdoor water use in Los Angeles, California

The current study analyzes existing methods for estimating outdoor use and landscape irrigation in highly developed residential areas across Los Angeles. Outdoor use was estimated using three methods: two methods described by the Pacific Institute and a third approach that utilizes remotely sensed vegetation and water billing data. Monthly individual water use records were provided by the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power (LADWP) for 2000–2010. This period includes voluntary and mandatory restrictions due to drought conditions across the state. Records were aggregated to the census tract level to protect customer privacy. The two Pacific Institute methods, which are based on water billing data, generally underestimate outdoor use due to assumptions that the lowest water consumption month represents indoor use, which is likely not the case in Los Angeles. The remote-sensing model developed between single-family water use and the Landsat normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) surplus performed well in greener areas of the city and indicates that landscape irrigation use represents 54% of total single-family water use. The model also predicts an average decrease in landscaping irrigation of 6% and by 35% during voluntary and mandatory restrictions, respectively. Voluntary conservation and mandatory waste restrictions were less effective for higher income groups in the city, while more stringent pricing and non-pricing mandatory restrictions in FY2010 had similar effects across income groups. Study results contribute to a better understanding of the partitioning of Los Angeles residential water use and can be utilized to evaluate pricing structures and target water conservation efforts.

Estimation of single‐family residential irrigation demand management effectiveness

This article presents a systematic procedure to quantify savings potential of single‐family residential irrigation demand management strategies that can be used to evaluate the optimal blend of these strategies to achieve specified goals. Current irrigation practices, irrigable area, and irrigation application rate are derived for each single‐family residence based on parcel‐level tax assessor's data linked to customer‐level monthly water billing data. Water savings are calculated directly as the difference between current and proposed use after implementation of a management option for each residence. This information is used to develop performance functions that estimate total water savings as a function of the number of implementations for each residence. This procedure allows demand management options to be compared directly with other supply augmentation options when determining the optimal blend. Probabilistic models are derived from benchmark parcel‐level datasets for evaluation of other utilities where direct measurements are unavailable.

A Desktop Analysis of Potable Water Savings from Internally Plumbed Rainwater Tanks in South-East Queensland, Australia

A methodology for the estimation of household potable water saving due to internally plumbed rainwater tanks (IPT) is presented in this paper. The methodology is based on a pairwise comparison of household water billing data between homes with IPT and without rainwater tanks (No Tank). These savings were compared with estimations using measured end use data and rainwater demand predictions using the Rainwater TANK model. The paper describes the application of this methodology to a case study in the south-east Queensland (SEQ) region of Australia. There was a significant reduction in mains water consumption for IPT properties in all regions studied in SEQ. Water reductions from mains supplies varied markedly across regions with mean values ranging from 20 to 95 kL/hh/y with an average mean of 50 kL/hh/y. Median water consumption values, ranged in mains water reductions from 28 to 52 kL/hh/y, with an average median of 40 kL/hh/y. Considering both measures an average water saving between 40 and 50 kL/hh/y can be expected from internally plumbed rainwater tanks. Water restrictions appear to have a strong influence on estimated reductions in mains water use. In regions where water restrictions were severe, water consumption was less varied between No Tank and IPT homes with a consequent reduction in estimated savings observed. Recommendations for further work include a survey to capture confounding factors that could not be fully controlled in the desktop study and a controlled pairwise experiment to monitor water consumption from raintanks.

Mining water billing data to inform policy and communication strategies

Every utility serves a unique customer base with its own water use and revenue generation patterns. Knowing its customers in detail helps a water provider customize policies and communication strategies not only for the customer base but also for smaller, targeted groups. This article introduces a relatively inexpensive way that utilities can use existing billing data to learn more about customer use patterns and applies this methodology at five North Carolina utilities. Developing smarter revenue and water use analytics that take into account changes in use behavior helps utilities be proactive in planning for resources changes (and the resulting financial implications) and be more effective in their communications and marketing. By moving away from engaging with residential customers as one homogeneous mass and instead treating them as groups of customers with distinct habits and values, utilities can use targeted messaging and outreach to bring customers on board with new policy rollouts.

Quantifying Urban Landscape Water Conservation Potential Using High Resolution Remote Sensing and GIS

Research goals were to analyze patterns of urban landscape water use, assess landscape water conservation potential, and identify locations with capacity to conserve. Methodological contributions involved acquiring airborne multispectral digital images over two urban cities which were processed, classified, and imported into a GIS environment where landscaped areas were extracted and combined with property and water billing data and local evapotranspiration rates to calculate landscape irrigation applications exceeding estimated water needs. Additional analyses were conducted to compare classified aerial images to ground-measured landscaped areas, landscaped areas to total parcel size, water use on residential and commercial properties, and turf areas under trees when they were leafed out and bare. Results verified the accuracy and value of this approach for municipal water management, showed more commercial properties applied water in excess of estimated needs compared to residential ones, and that small percentages of users accounted for most of the excess irrigation.

Situational Waste in Landscape Watering: Residential and Business Water Use in an Urban Utah Community1

Abstract: Landscape water conservation is an important issue for municipalities throughout the Western United States, and especially in Utah as rapid growth strains existing water supplies. We conducted interdisciplinary research in Layton, Utah, that aimed at understanding patterns of landscape water use among households and businesses. The research project involved three basic tasks. First, a landscape “water budget” was developed by producing a calibrated and classified mosaic of landscape type and area from airborne multispectral digital imagery, integrating this information with Layton City parcel boundary data to determine landscape vegetated areas per lot, and estimating irrigation needs derived from reference evapotranspiration (ETo) obtained using weather data for the Salt Lake City metropolitan region. Second, utilizing Layton water billing data, water use for each household and business was identified and categorized as “conserving,”“acceptable” or “wasteful” by determining how much the water applied varied from actual landscape plant need. Third, surveys were administered to a random stratified sample of households and businesses in the study area to investigate various factors that were hypothesized to be predictive of wasteful watering practices. This paper primarily focuses on analysis of the household and business survey data, which explores factors affecting urban landscape water use from a human behavioral perspective. We found that the most significant factors predicting actual water use were the type of irrigation system and whether the location was a household or business. Attitudinal and motivational characteristics were not consistently associated with water use. We found that wasteful watering is the result of many factors embedded in the complex context of urban landscapes. This implies that water conservation programs should identify potential wasteful users through analyses of water billing data and direct water conservation measures at these users by focusing on site‐specific evaluations and recommendations. Water audits or water checks are one such tool that some communities have employed to help people understand and assess the quantity of water needed by and applied to their landscapes. This approach provides an opportunity to evaluate situational constraints at particular locations and design appropriate strategies for reducing water waste.

Application of GIS to Plan Long-Range Water Supply Facilities by Linking Land Use and Water Billing Data of City of Cape Coral in Southwest Florida

Application of GIS to Plan Long-Range Water Supply Facilities by Linking Land Use and Water Billing Data of City of Cape Coral in Southwest Florida